Dis-Chem ‘Look To Us’

For the Dis-Chem campaign, PCS was tasked with creating a piece of music rooted in South African cultural heritage. One that could tap into childhood nostalgia and the feeling of something passed down through generations. The creative brief called for a sense of homesickness and familiarity, which naturally led the search towards the intimacy of a lullaby.

Working closely with the creative team, Music Supervisor Katryn Nieuwoudt explored a number of musical routes, looking not only at how each option sounded, but at the meaning of its lyrics and how authentically it could connect with the brief. She presented a selection of options where both the musicality and lyrical meaning could carry that sense of memory, home and nostalgia.

This process led to “Tula Mntwana”, a traditional Xhosa lullaby passed down through oral tradition, with its composer credited simply as “Traditional”. Katryn then led the provenance and clearance process through the SAMAP archive (South African Music Archive Project) and the University of Pretoria’s South African Composers database.

A key part of establishing this provenance was a 1957 recording of “Thula Mntwana” preserved by SAMAP. Classified as an anthropological recording within the field of ethnomusicology, it documents the song as part of Southern African oral tradition and provided an important historical reference in confirming its traditional origins.

From there, the process moved from music supervision into re-imagination. Rather than licensing or sampling an existing recording, PCS created a new version from the ground up. Katryn worked with Senior Composer Ben Schutte to develop the re-creation, with Ben and vocalist Muneyi writing new lyrics that worked alongside the original song and its meaning for the brand campaign.

The recognisable base melody of the lullaby was retained so that it would resonate emotionally with South African audiences, while the new lyrics, arrangement, instrumentation, structure, tempo and dynamics were created specifically around the tone and pacing of the Dis-Chem campaign. Muneyi’s performance brought the piece to life, anchoring the emotional core of the track.

Before commercial use, Katryn conducted a thorough rights review, confirming that the core melody of the traditional song belongs to a non-copyrightable oral tradition and carries no third-party publishing claims. The new work was registered as “Derived from traditional South African oral folklore and regional ethnomusicological field traditions.”

The result is a piece of music that honours its cultural origins while standing as an original, freshly recorded re-creation. Researched, rewritten and created specifically for the Dis-Chem campaign.

The craft here lies as much in the music supervision groundwork as it does in the final composition. And in this case, that groundwork began well before clearance.

Working alongside the creative team, Katryn Nieuwoudt helped translate the brief into a musical search. The objective was to evoke childhood nostalgia. The feeling of something remembered, inherited or passed down through generations, with a sense of homesickness at its heart. Katryn explored and presented a number of options where both the musicality and the meaning of the lyrics could speak to that idea. The lullaby became a natural fit: intimate, familiar and deeply connected to memory and home.

That creative search led to “Tula Mntwana”. From there, Katryn’s role shifted into detailed provenance and rights research, making sure the team understood exactly what they were working with before developing it further. Drawing on the SAMAP archive and the University of Pretoria’s South African Composers database, she established that “Tula Mntwana” is a genuine oral-tradition folk song with no identifiable composer and no active publishing rights attached to its core melody and traditional lyrics.

Central to that research was a 1957 recording of “Thula Mntwana” preserved by the South African Music Archive Project. The recording is classified as an anthropological recording within the field of ethnomusicology, serving as a cultural artefact documenting indigenous child-rearing practices, oral traditions and the socio-historical context of Southern African societies. This archival recording provided an important historical reference in establishing the song’s provenance and confirming its roots in traditional oral culture.

Her research uncovered only one adjacent composer claim, relating to a separate arrangement of a different song.

With that provenance established, the next part of the craft was deciding how to make the song work for this particular story. Katryn worked with Senior Composer Ben Schutte on a new adaptation, with Ben and vocalist Muneyi creating new lyrics that worked with the original song and its meaning, while bringing it into the world of the Dis-Chem campaign.

Importantly, this wasn’t a sample or a licensed lift. The music was re-recorded from the ground up. The base melody was kept recognisable enough to carry the emotional and cultural weight of the lullaby, while new lyrics, instrumentation, arrangement, structure, tempo and dynamics were created specifically for the brief.

Muneyi’s performance was central to finding that balance, bringing warmth and intimacy to a melody that needed to feel both timeless and new.

The process shows the breadth of what music supervision can bring to a creative partnership: understanding the brief, finding music that connects both sonically and lyrically, tracing its cultural and legal provenance, and then working closely with composers and artists to create something new from it. In this case, research, supervision, adaptation, new lyrics and a complete re-recording came together to respectfully take a piece of South African cultural heritage into a contemporary brand campaign.